A month after Robert Spencer’s interview appeared in Vecernje Novosti, interviewer Jovan Tripkovic placed another one, with Pamela Geller. Below is the original correspondence, so there might be an English version on record:

********An Independent Kosovo is a Jihad State in the Heart of Europe (Dec. 16, 2018)

1) It is well known that you have friends in the White House. What would be your advice to them regarding American foreign policy on the conflict between Serbia and the unilaterally self-declared state of Kosovo?

In such a case, I would advise them to back Serbia. I have maintained for years that President Bill Clinton made one of his many catastrophic mistakes when he backed the Muslims in the Bosnian war. Like President Carter backing the Ayatollah Khomeini against the pro-American Shah, the consequences of aiding and abetting Islamic movements are catastrophic, as we have seen in Iran with the recent protests against the Islamic regime.

2) How do you see the fact that the so-called state of Kosovo was not accepted into Interpol? Do you think that the international community is changing its approach to Kosovo?

Interpol put realism before political correctness and recognized, even if tacitly, that Kosovo is full of jihad terrorists, and that the government itself may be infiltrated. But this doesn’t necessarily herald any change in the stance of the international community. There is no general recognition of what Kosovo is, and what it means for Europe — no sign of this at the EU or UN, for example. Kosovo is a jihad state in the heart of Europe.

3) Do you think that Serbia and the Serbian nation have true friends in the administration of President Trump, who would support our interests in Bosnia and in the region of Kosovo? (Here, I am thinking about national security advisor Mr. Bolton, who has a very pro-Serbian stance.)

Yes, I do. Certainly Mr. Bolton has a much more realistic understanding of the situation in the Balkans in general than do many other foreign policy experts.

4) Who deserves credit for the change in US policies toward the resolution of the Kosovo conflict? Is it John Bolton, President Trump or somebody else? (I would like to remind you that two years ago the resolution was for Serbia to recognize Kosovo as an independent country. Right now, we can hear that some people from the administration are saying that America agrees with partition of Kosovo.)

Bolton has long opposed the creation of an independent Kosovo. Bolton and Trump both deserve the credit. President Trump has a vision that Mr. Bolton is amply equipped to implement. The Trump administration is to be commended for diverging from the US State Department establishment’s long-settled policies, and blazing a new trail to defend freedom worldwide.

5) How do you comment on the Bosnian state court acquitting Naser Oric, the Muslim commander of Srebrenica, for his crimes against the Christian Serbian population?

It is an indication of the jihadi bias of the Bosnian state. Oric committed crimes against Christians, but the Qur’an commands Muslims to wage war against Christians, so of course he was acquitted.

6) So many Serbian military officers were convicted for their “crimes” at The Hague’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. However, not many Kosovars or Bosniaks were convicted for crimes and genocide against Christian Serbs. Do you think that the Serbian victims will get the justice they deserve?

Unfortunately, I doubt they will. It is a grave injustice. The international “human rights community” is deeply corrupt and biased against non-Muslims.

Rising young Serbian journo-political star Jovan Tripkovic — who interviewed me in August — recently conducted and published the following interview with Islamic scholar Robert Spencer. It appeared in Serbia’s largest daily, Novosti in November. Below is the English version of the interview, which Jovan sent me so that an online record would exist.

What is the American interest in military interventions in secular Muslim countries and, in the same vein, support for Saudi Arabia?

The US is guided by realpolitik in its alliance with Saudi Arabia. It needs the Saudis, or thinks it does, for oil, and for leverage against Iran. I hope that this sham alliance will one day be ended, although I do see its utility in checking Iran aggression.

What is behind the privilege treatment of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC?

Oil, money, and leverage against Iran.

Were Iran and Saudi Arabia involved in the 9/11 events, and why was Bosnia so significant in this major terrorist attack?

The notorious 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report, which were kept secret for years, reveal high-level Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. And a federal judge found evidence of Iranian involvement in those attacks so compelling that he awarded a multi-million-dollar judgment against Iran to relatives of 9/11 victims. Al-Qaeda made Bosnia a major base of its operations in the 1990s, and the 9/11 plotters worked from Bosnia for some of their operations.

Before the civil war in Bosnia, the influence there of Saudi Arabia and Iran was negligible. Now, their presence is stronger than ever before. Why did former President Bill Clinton allow jihadists to come to Bosnia and establish their foothold in Europe?

Bill Clinton made the disastrous decision to side with the Muslims during the civil war in the Balkans, and enabled the establishment of a jihadi beachhead there, in the name of “democracy” and “self-determination.” It is hard not to conclude that he was guided by the Saudis in this.

Do American politicians regret this decision, considering the rise of Islamic terrorism in recent years?

To my knowledge, no, but they should.

Novosti discovered a hidden report, presented to the CIA in 1993, about a massacre in which more than a thousand Serbs were killed. Who had the power to influence the decision to keep it secret?

The Saudis have massive influence over the American government.

Is it possible for America to change its position on Bosnia and take the Serbian side due to concern over the rise of radical Islam in the region?

Yes, but only if there is a revolution in the US stance regarding the Saudis.

Do you think that the Bosnian version of Islam is more peaceful and tolerant than the Middle Eastern version of that religion?

No, it is all the same, especially since Wahhabis have targeted Bosnia and flooded into it for 20 years now.

Can Bosnia survive as a democratic, multiethnic state despite the growing influence of some Middle Eastern countries there?

No, Sharia is incompatible with democracy. Bosnia will ultimately choose one or the other.

On Sunday, Serbia’s largest foreign affairs weekly Pecat ran an interview with me by a young man named Jovan Tripkovic. I understand that a fuller online version appeared in the daily Novosti, and is also available on Mr. Tripkovic’s blog. So that there is a record of it in English, I’ve reproduced below the original questions and answers, before they were translated into Serbian.

**********

What was the national interest of the United States in supporting Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia? Was it in the national interest of the American nation, or in the financial interest of America’s political elite?

There was no national interest in America’s support for Bosnian and Albanian Muslims in the Yugoslav conflicts — something admitted by U.S. officials every time they explained that these were “humanitarian wars” and therefore didn’t require a national interest. However, in hindsight, given the logical conclusion of those wars which we are now witnessing — namely, the Get Russia agenda — it becomes clear what our underlying so-called “interest” was: getting a foothold near Russia (via our Bondsteel military base) as a rung on the ladder toward Russia’s encirclement and eventual dismantlement. Such a priority was this false-interest goal that we were in fact willing to undermine real security, stability, and national interest to achieve it.

So no, none of it was in the national interest of the American nation, but whether it was all done, rather, to further the financial interests of our political elite is worth analyzing. While I don’t think that figured into the equation for war, it was certainly a blatant result. (Or were we not supposed to notice, 15 years later, former Secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s firm bidding for Kosovo’s national telecom company during the privatization process?) And of course part of the drive to dismember Russia — on the road to which was the dismemberment of Yugoslavia — is to get in on that economy and natural resources.

Lastly, our involvement in the Kosovo war in particular couldn’t have happened without campaign cash pouring into our Congressmembers’ purses by the ethnic lobby that wanted it. So in that retroactive sense too, siding with the Albanians was done in furtherance of our political elites’ financial interests.

It’s been almost 20 years since the US intervention in Kosovo and 10 years since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence. Do you think that military-intelligence structures in DC have realized the mistake that the United States made in Kosovo, taking into account the fact that the territory of Kosovo is the biggest exporter of jihadists to Syria and Iraq?

The mistake we made in Kosovo — if it indeed started out that way by part of the military-intelligence structures (Pentagon advised against the Kosovo action initially and Congressional Republicans voted against it) — was realized much earlier than today which sees a high proportion of “Kosovars” joining ISIS. It was realized immediately after the war, as early as 1999 and 2000, when Albanian guns turned on NATO peacekeepers trying to prevent them from wantonly shooting at Serbs (and sometimes not even in those instances). Not only were the president’s and defense secretary’s Kosovo trips canceled in 1999, but articles in the Western press started appearing, such as a March 2001 BBC item reading, “US troops have shot and wounded two rebel fighters in Kosovo, near the increasingly tense border with Macedonia…Nato troops could be sucked into combating the ethnic Albanian insurgency in Macedonia…Fighters from the rebel National Liberation Army have told the BBC that if any of those arrested were to be extradited to Macedonia, the organisation would consider American K-For troops to be legitimate targets….‘We are looking very closely now at the possible decision to allow Yugoslav forces into the ground safety zone,’ Nato Secretary General, Lord Robertson, said in New York.”

And, for just one more example:

“The speed with which the West has switched sides to work with Yugoslav forces following the fall of the old Milosevic regime in Belgrade has alarmed some military analysts…heighten[ing] the danger that Albanian extremists inside Kosovo or the Presevo Valley will turn their guns on Nato peacekeepers whom they accuse of betrayal…Tensions mounted in the valley…when suspected guerrillas broke a ceasefire and fired at Serbian police posts….In the nearby rebel headquarters in Koncul, just inside Serbia, fighters were hostile to Western journalists whom they once welcomed. Shefket Musliu, the bearded, shaven-headed top UCPMB commander, aggressively ordered us out of the ethnic Albanian stronghold.”

Unfortunately, foreign policy is only forward-looking; it does not change course, so the mentality became, “OK, we screwed up; how do we make this work for us now? In other words, ‘We’ve dug ourselves into a hole, how can we dig even deeper — so we can at least take something out?’ This is how we got taken along for the full ride of the Albanian agenda, with the internationals there following orders from their Albanian masters on what they could or couldn’t notice, and which investigations they could pursue or not.

Even the fact that today — 20 years later — Kosovo is proportionally the biggest exporter of jihadists to Syria is beside the point regarding the words “Kosovo mistake.” Our attitude toward jihadists in general should be clear by now. Events since Kosovo — that is, in Libya, Syria and others where U.S. again supported jihadists against governments — have made it unmistakable: we do not regard terrorists and jihadists as an ultimate target, even if we are theirs. The ultimate target is, and has always been, Russia, and jihadists are viewed as an often useful tool against such perceived “rivals” no matter how many Westerners they kill. We don’t take seriously those who seek our end, but are very serious toward Russia, which does not seek our end.

Now, through this prism, our backwards involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo is crystallized.

Do you think that the American public is properly informed about the role of Bosnian radical Islamists and mujahideen in the 9/11 terrorist attack?

Not only is the American public not informed about the Bosnian role in the 9/11 attacks, it can’t even pronounce the word Bosnia.

There are much more directly-impacting things that Americans don’t understand, let alone something as “obscure” as a Balkans connection. And being a boiling frog, which seems to shrug at being mere food for our Islamic masters and know that objecting is futile, we long-conditioned Americans wouldn’t bat an eyelash that 9/11 had connections and origins in Bosnia. It’s almost funny that there was an active effort by the political establishment and its writers/thinkers to cover up or deflect from the Bosnian and Kosovan elements in terrorism, given that Americans ignore the Balkans region anyway. In fact, when Kosovo declared independence less than 10 years after our war there, Americans were asking, “What’s Kosovo?”

Can you make a parallel between the cultural destruction of the Islamic state and the cultural genocide, which occurred on March 17th, 2004 in the region of Kosovo and Metohija?

The cultural destruction that’s been carried out by Islamic State does bear an uncanny resemblance to the cultural and religious destruction by Albanians of all things Serbian/Orthodox, which culminated in March 2004. Even if there was no practical connection (and indeed, IS came along only much later), the resemblance is unmistakable. And of course there is a connection in the larger scheme of things, in terms of the direction the globe is heading in. Incidentally, there was literally a parallel at the time that the cultural defacing of Kosovo was happening: in Gaza and the West Bank, where Palestinian, as opposed to Albanian, Muslims were engaging in similar destruction of synagogues and other Jewish sites and relics. And yet we were supposed to view both cases — Serbia and Israel — as something specific to those regional conflicts. That is, in a vacuum. But thankfully ISIS has cleared that up for us.

The Albanian lobby is present in America, while a Serbian one doesn’t even exist in Washington DC. However, the Jewish diaspora is one of the most influential in the United States of America. Taking into account that Serbs and Jews have similar destiny and shared national interest, do you think that the Jewish community is a natural and logical partner of Serbia in the process of defense and promotion of the Serbian national interest in the United States?

This is a big yes, and the reason that I was jolted into action in 1999. I couldn’t stand it, as a Jew, that this was being done to a people. Even a people who, at the time, I was unfamiliar with. I simply saw what was happening to Serbia as something that could happen to Israel. Indeed, something that was being attempted at Israel daily.

Only as I did more research did I learn the parallels and history of Serbs and Jews. That was the kind of profound coincidence that confirms there are no coincidences.

American Jews should have known better (or at least done some research) than to take the wrong side in Bosnia and Kosovo. If it would have bothered them to side against Albanians, given Albania’s decent WWII history toward Jews (despite being an Axis partner), then they should have had the decency to just stay out of it.

But yes, Serbs and Jews are natural partners (the Israeli Jews, at least, recognize this), and if Serbs haven’t done a good job of lobbying Washington, perhaps they can lobby the Jews who successfully lobby Washington.

Do you believe that the current administration of President Trump is more open for cooperation and dialogue with Serbia than previous administrations? Do you have any advice for the Serbian government, how to be more successful in the process of lobbying for the national interest in Washington DC?

I do believe the Trump administration is one that would be more open to a change in our Balkans policy. Unfortunately, that particular sphere is always the ball that gets dropped or sacrificed even by a reasonable/Republican presidency, as it finds itself fighting bigger battles. Washington attitudes and policies toward that region are so entrenched that there’s no changing them even by a maverick like Trump. Every new president is just told what the agreed and ongoing and “correct” bipartisan policy is, and that there’s no reason to change anything. There were even articles coming out within months of the start of Trump’s presidency, profiling a pair of Albanian brothers who are nicely in place at the NSA or some such agency, as are many others throughout our intelligence apparatuses. It’ll just be even sadder than usual, given that Trump’s children were partly raised by a Serbian nanny.

Is there a possibility that in the near future, due to Muslim expansion in the region of the Balkans, the United States of America will openly support independence of the Republic of Srpska, which would open a new chapter in relations between our two countries?

Unfortunately, given our now open support of Islam (as early as 1995, a New Republic article assessed that the U.S. is staking its future with the Muslim world), even Islamic expansion in the Balkans region wouldn’t deter our anti-Serb policies. So no, we would not support independence of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, but would use it as an excuse for more of the typical threats against the “uncooperative” Serb entity and decry “Serbian intransigence” and then of course “nationalism.”

The fact that you even ask this hopeful question demonstrates the heartbreaking nature of the dynamic: Serbs always leaving the door open, an olive branch extended, to friendship and cooperation and an “all is forgiven” attitude toward a West that has proved itself to be little more than a predator to them. Even if the scenario you describe were to happen, it would be too generous on your parts, and extract no apologies from us even as our reversal would imply an understanding that we were wrong.

In demonstrating that “Americans do not hunger for territory,” Marc A. Thiessen quotes the following from an “enthralling” 2004 Krauthammer lecture (“On Charles Krauthammer, my friend, mentor, and lodestar,” June 13): “We like it here. We like our McDonald’s. We like our football….We’ve got the Grand Canyon and Graceland.…And if that’s not enough, we’ve got Vegas — which is a facsimile of everything.” This reads like a standup routine I was performing the same year, as I was ra-ra, gung-ho for Bush, Cheney, Rice and that whole country-club conservative lot. Today I’m embarrassed.

To dismiss American empire which, even if unconventional, doles out reward and punishment to countries that do or don’t play ball (as opposed to live and let live), such that even Czechs find their government answering to Washington’s preferences and demands more than to its citizenry’s, is a copout. This is without mentioning our “democracy-spreading” that’s decimated Christian populations throughout the globe.

Thiessen paraphrases Krauthammer saying, “We are not an imperial power,” which echoes Dick Cheney’s words that I once cheered: “We are not an expansionist state.” At the time, I was still able to compartmentalize our violent dismantling of Yugoslavia as an American aberration — something that could happen only under an amoral president like Bill Clinton. I didn’t know it had started with Bush I, or that it would be consummated under Bush II. And now we’ve set our sights on non-Soviet Russia, which for two decades did try to play ball but was shut out, confirming that the Balkan prequel was no aberration.

In the early days of our courtship, my husband and I bonded over a (still) brilliant 1990 Krauthammer article he had on his wall. What a disillusioning two decades it’s been, as all the Krauthammers, Cheneys, Kristols, and their acolytes are exposed as destructive frauds.

Because Albanians — even more than Muslims in general — “aren’t like that.”

It’s largely true, of course, including in the sense of their not being like the religious Middle Easterners. But it’s also just as irrelevant; what’s relevant is that American policy/security was and is backwards on Muslims and Slavs. But the “not like that” factor makes it all the more noteworthy that not until IS came along did Albanian names in jihad start coming to actual prominence. Finally, a jihadi movement violent enough for the Albanian palate — already whetted by Serbian blood — to seek name recognition. When even media expressed shock at the violence level of Arab-killer Lavdrim Muhaxheri, he shrugged that this was no different from “what we did to Serbs.” (The latter, of course, was *not* shocking, but par for the course.)

Recall that the political-media-military establishment got us on board the Balkans wars by saying that these Muslims aren’t like ‘those Middle Eastern ones,” so it’s OK to help them (especially so they don’t become like those). Eventually, we started being told that, actually, there’s nothing wrong with the religious Middle Eastern sorts to begin with and if we think there is, it’s our own xenophobia that’s the problem.

Boiling frog, Anyone? The Albanians and Bosnians were an early rung in our conditioning process. And so now here we are, like Pavlovian dogs, howling every time another Muslim commits another atrocity — in protest of possible insults that could result to Muslims in general. Dead infidels? Why, that’s just par for the course. And we’re still too dumb to see that we’re the Slavs. A slave mentality indeed.

But the clues are out there, if you know where to not look away.

A New American Leader Rises in ISIS (The Atlantic, Jan. 13, 2018)A two-year investigation identifies one of the very few Americans in the Islamic State’s upper ranks — and sheds light on the dynamics of radicalization.
By Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Bennett Clifford

The clues are out there, if you know where to look. Scattered across far-flung corners of the internet, there is evidence that Zulfi Hoxha, the son of an Albanian-American pizza-shop owner from New Jersey, had sinister plans.

First there’s the defunct Twitter profile, which at one point engaged in a conversation with a State Department counter-propaganda account about the Islamic State. Then there’s the fact that he used the social-networking site Paltalk, a communications platform reportedly popular among Western jihadis. But none of it compares to the ISIS propaganda video that, according to multiple law-enforcement officials, shows Hoxha beheading captured Kurdish soldiers. If they are right about his identity, Hoxha is the first American Islamic State member known to be beheading individuals in such a video.

Ah, so the first American IS member known to behead is not a pious Middle Eastern type but an Albanian. (As “American” as the three “American” Bytyqibrothers who with our blessing left the country to do the same to Serbs, with the U.S. expressing grave indignation over their subsequent killing, and former ambassador William Walker participating in a KLA honor guard escorting their bodies back to America.)

…In May 2017, the Islamic State media office in Iraq’s Nineveh province released a 45-minute video entitled “We Will Surely Guide Them To Our Ways.”… [“Abu Hamza al-Amriki.”] exhorts the “muwahiddin [believers]” in America to carry out domestic attacks: “Are you incapable of stabbing a kaffir [non-Muslim] with a knife, throwing him off of a building, or running him over with a car? Liberate yourself from hellfire by killing a kaffir.”…Abu Hamza al-Amriki is Zulfi Hoxha.
…
This is so far the only instance in which the U.S. government has confirmed the name (and American citizenship) of an Islamic State member who appears in one of the group’s media products. While a number of Americans have appeared in terrorist propaganda videos over the years, law enforcement rarely comments on their identity. Moreover, the government does not often publicly release its assessments of American Islamic State members’ role or rank. Hoxha’s apparent status in the group places him in an elite category of the group’s American members who have risen to some level of leadership. Most American Islamic State supporters never made it to Syria.
…
In October 2015, a video was released by the Islamic State of a purported American brutally beheading a Kurdish peshmerga soldier. The 15-minute video, shot from multiple camera angles, features four individuals dressed in black and standing behind captured Kurdish soldiers. Its subject speaks with the same accent and inflection as Hoxha in the May 2017 release. Multiple law-enforcement officials told us that the individual who says he is “delivering a message to Obama” and then commits the first execution is Hoxha. If officially confirmed, it would be the first case of an American Islamic State member beheading someone in a propaganda video.
…
An account on the gaming website Steam bearing the username “Hohxa77” lists his favorite titles, including Splinter Cell, Mortal Kombat, and Left 4 Dead. Indeed, this shared interest in video games may have been one of the first things that brought Hoxha together with David Wright….During Wright’s trial, prosecutors argued that he used several video games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and other titles to “virtually prepare” for jihad. His defense attorneys, however, painted Wright, who weighed over 400 pounds at the time of the conspiracy, as a “fat, failed loser” who used video games as a substitute for real-life violent activity, according to the trial transcript.
…
The court records show that prior to Hoxha’s departure, David Wright put him in touch with another American Islamic State supporter, his uncle Usaamah Rahim, and together they began helping Hoxha as he prepared to travel in the spring of 2015. The two men raised money for Hoxha’s plane ticket to Istanbul by selling Rahim’s laptop on Craigslist. Hoxha departed for Istanbul on April 6.
…
Wright, Rahim and a third member of the group, Nicholas Rovinski, eventually decided on a different path than that taken by Hoxha. They were in the early stages of a plot to kidnap and behead the anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller when, on June 2, 2015, Rahim was stopped by police outside of CVS in Roslindale, Massachusetts. They wanted to question him after wiretapping a conversation between Rahim and Wright that morning during which they discussed attack plans. Refusing to co-operate, Rahim pulled a hunting knife on the officers and was shot dead. Wright and Rovinski were arrested shortly afterward and charged with a range of offences; in 2016,Rovinski pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to the plot. He testified against Wright, who was convicted in 2017 and is now serving a 28-year sentence.

At the time of his death, Rahim was portrayed as just another incompetent “lone wolf” Islamic State supporter with no serious connections to any real-world group members. Even after investigators arrested Wright, who at the time was unemployed and essentially immobile due to his weight, and Rovinski, who had cerebral palsy, this “cell” of Islamic State supporters is still viewed largely as an isolated group of three friends acting on deluded fantasies. While Rahim, Wright, and Rovinski were undoubtedly amateurs, we now know that they formed part of a wider network that was in communication with Islamic State operatives in Syria and had facilitated the travel of Hoxha, who would go on to rise in the group’s ranks.
…
It is also becoming clear that a small but surprising number of American Islamic State members have been able to sufficiently impress the group’s leadership so as to be given more senior roles. It is still rare for Westerners to become anything more than foot soldiers or, in some cases, propagandists. They do not usually possess the battlefield experience or other skills required to attain senior positions.

But in Zulfi Hoxha’s case, a seemingly inexperienced American youth managed to climb the ranks, and appear as one of the Western faces of Islamic State in its propaganda. It is unclear how he achieved this, although he may have impressed his commanders with his apparently immediate willingness to take part in such acts of brutality as the beheading of an enemy soldier.

There being no institutional memory anymore — and the dummies at Washington Times therefore having no idea they ever published “The Blackmail of America: How the US Became the Albanian Mafia’s Enforcer” — last month they published longtime Albanian hire David L. Phillips on why Serbia simply must recognize Kosovo as a state. (Something Serbia was assured by the Western bosses it would never have to do, including as a precondition for EU membership — until of course it was told it would.)

I was a bit late with the letter, sending it on Sept. 27th, so perhaps that’s why it didn’t get published. Though when one writes against the grain of American “thinking” on the Balkans, one doesn’t need to look for excuses for being ignored.

Below is the letter — just for the record — with brackets containing reinserted parts I’d removed for space considerations.

[There is a striking similarity between the Kosovo/Bosnia conflicts and our current Yugoslavia Redux known as Russiagate: Right is indistinguishable from Left on this. And so Mr. Phillips’ byline — a staple of Huffington Post, NY Times and Washington Post — infects the comparatively more sensible Washington Times, as if it hasn’t already published articles long debunking the “facts” upon which Mr. Phillips’ perspective is based.

“Perspective” is in quotes because the view of this “Albania Project” director is paid for, something The Times should let readers know. Like other mouthpieces for the ever-expanding Albanian cause, Mr. Phillips offers nothing more than a wholesale graft of the ultranationalist, we-can-kill-Serbs-with-impunity-because-our-cause-is-just view.]

Without lending too much credence to the 2004 story in German-owned tabloid Blic that Mr. Phillips hosted Washington darling and president-slash-organ-trafficker Hashim Thaci at a lobbyist brainstorming dinner on advancing Kosovo independence (less than a week before the organized pogroms that expedited precisely that outcome), one must point out that indeed Kosovo leaders and Mr. Phillips’ good friends were notorious for the ability to turn Kosovo violence on and off like a switch.

Violence that Mr. Phillips hailed as a tactic in 2011, writing, “Kosovo Albanians have a track record of using violence to advance their political goals…: create a crisis, get the international community involved, and enlist foreign mediators in service of Kosovo’s agenda.” Mr. Phillips encouraged Barack Obama to follow the Clinton-Bush lead by “restoring Kosovo’s sovereignty and stabilizing the Western Balkans.” (At the time, some not-yet-cleansed Serbs were still trying to remain citizens of Serbia rather than supremacist, Serb-slicing Kosovo.)

This oft-repeated mantra “stabilizing the Balkans” is codespeak for giving Albanians what they want lest they resort to the means they know best, an M.O. Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama is now threatening all of Europe with if Albania is left out of the EU (while alternately threatening to merge with Kosovo, a goal we’d dismissed as “Serbian propaganda” in 1999).

[But if Mr. Phillips knows that “violence has served a purpose [in Kosovo] by mobilizing international mediation,” then surely he knows how Kosovo the state came to be. Analyst Jim Jatras last month offered an apt summary: “In the late 1990s, western intelligence services and their friends in the Islamic world, notably Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey, as well as al-Qaeda-linked Islamic ‘charities’, pumped weapons into Kosovo to support armed terrorist groups known as the ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ (KLA). Headed by kingpins in the Albanian mafia, the KLA attacked Serbian officials and civilians, as well as murdered insufficiently militant Albanians, in a bid to invite a [Yugoslavian] government crackdown which would serve as a pretext for intervention by the international community, meaning the U.S. and NATO, to stop a fictional Serbian genocide of Albanians.”

Or maybe Mr. Phillips really doesn’t get it. How else to explain his tweet, in the aftermath of the Charlottesville clash, to “Read my article @HuffPost calling for dialogue & action to counter intolerance, bigotry, & hatred.” Intolerance, bigotry and hatred form the framework that birthed his Kosovo, and the glue that holds it together.]

Mr. Phillips, an early pal of Bosnia’s mujahedeen-importing Haris Silajdzic, is whom The Times publishes in all seriousness even as he’s struggled, in a nod to the intractability of the monster he helped create, to explain away the Islamismc radicalism taking hold of Albanians. Which of course couldn’t be related to the nationalist Albanian radicalism that got us here in the first place. That, we were told, was Serbian radicalism; God forbid 20/20 hindsight be a revelation that maybe that’s not what it was. But one can’t be an “expert” without failing to connect the dots.

And so we make do with some isolated admissions, such as this from Mr. Phillips in 2015: “The Government of Kosovo is partly to blame [for radicalization]. Kosovo is known for its corrupt governance and dysfunctional politics. Criminality is widespread. Public officials cavort with gangsters, rather than acting as role models.” As if this wasn’t the predictable logical conclusion of a KLA-run Kosovo.

Such is the beast Mr. Phillips demands Serbia recognize even as ‘Kosovars’ flee their dream state in droves. [What do we call them, then? Do they revert to just being Albanians?] And lest he sound momentarily objective above, Mr. Phillips immediately redirects the blame, to US policies — now “fuel[ing] support for ISIS” among Albanians, if you can imagine, by requiring any compromises at all from the Albanian side. “Religion offers a clear identity and a sense of belonging to Kosovars who feel abandoned by Western countries,” he wrote in 2015. Weren’t we asked to believe that our intervention on Albanian behalf would preclude such sympathies?

Perhaps Mr. Phillips’ most senile article — published this year on Huffington Post — raged that France would even consider honoring a Serbian warrant for Ramush Haradinaj, one of Kosovo’s endless streams of KLA-terrorists-turned-statesmen. Mr. Phillips actually cited Haradinaj’s two acquittals at The Hague — in trials notorious for witnesses dropping dead or dropping out. Good going, Washington Times.

THE EU will face a “nightmare” scenario if it does not allow Albania and other Balkan states to join the bloc, the Albanian Prime Minister has claimed.

Albania is a formal membership candidate for the EU, but the process has been slowed by the crumbling bloc and member states who do not want to allow new countries into the 28 member union.

Now Prime Minister Edi Rama, a self-avowed friend of Tony Blair, has claimed the Balkans could “go crazy” if their role in Europe is not appreciated.

He warned the bloc rolling back its membership offer could wreak havoc on the continent, saying “the alternative would be a nightmare for the people and countries of Europe.”

Mr Rama said: “There is a lack of understanding, or a lack of vision in not realising that this region needs Europe, but Europe needs this region too, for a secure and safe Europe.

[What’s that saying? “You need us to not wreak havoc”?]

“How can the union be secure and safe if the Balkans will go crazy?

“How can the European Union allow at its own heart a grey zone where other actors can have a larger influence than the EU itself?

“This is nonsense in terms of security, in terms of safety.”

It comes as the county considers creating a union with Kosovo, which has a majority Albanian ethnic population, despite it being explicitly disallowed by the Kosovan constitution.

Speaking to Politico, the Albanian leader claimed the move could be a “possible alternative” to EU membership.

[As if they’re not going to go for the Kosovo-Albania merge one way or the other. In fact, the first threat to Brussels after EU membership will be if it doesn’t let Albania have its union within a union. ]

Mr Rama added: “The only way to keep the Balkans in this peaceful and cooperative mode is to keep the path to the EU open, to keep the perspective clear, to keep emotions about the EU positive.

[’You don’t want Albanians for an enemy. Just look what happened to Serbia.’ Indeed, they’re only “peaceful and cooperative” so long as you’re giving them what they want.]

“No one would like to turn in on themselves and look for smaller unions, everyone would like to unite in the big union.

“But if there’s no hope, no perspective, no space, then, of course, little unions may happen.”

It comes after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned over instability in the Western Balkans.

Mr Juncker said to the US Vice President Mike Pence last month: “If we leave them alone - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, Macedonia, Albania, all those countries — we will have war again.”

Unlike the last time we didn’t leave them alone?

Just to refresh our memories on what underlies all this Western talk of “stability vs. instability,” here is a flashback to a BBC item from Jan. 2011:

[T]he United States and leading EU countries reacted differently to the [Dick] Marty report [which uncovered a murder-for-organs operation by the KLA that involved current Kosovo leaders] — after repeating in unison from the beginning that Kosovo should be given independence because this was a precondition for stability.

But [London School of Economics’ James] Ker-Lindsay said that none were willing to publicly admit that the greatest danger posed to stability were in fact threats made by Kosovo’s Albanians that they would “return to violence” unless given independence.

The British expert also noted that Hashim Thaci was “long believed to be of key importance” in preventing such violence. [i.e., he turns the violence on or off with a snap of the fingers; yet here he is talking about “fighting crime and organized corruption.”]

Now, however, Europeans are beginning to go with the stance that Priština must first fulfill those standards “that were insisted on before independence” [a little late for that], said Ker-Lindsay, adding that “American interests in Kosovo are different from those of Europe”, and that this difference meant the EU “truly wanted Kosovo to grow into a democratic state that respects human rights”, whereas Washington “still insisted on stability”.

What that’s saying is, for Europe Kosovo is a reality in its midst, whereas for us it’s a sweepable-under-the-rug abstraction to be used politically as needed, since it’s not our neighborhood that’ll be disrupted by a dysfunctional criminal state. And yet it’s this dysfunctional state that the dysfunctional Albania seeks to unite with — even as Albanians have expressed just how united they feel with Kosovo by fleeing it in droves.

And the band marches on, to make sure there’s no stopping the Kosovo fait accompli: Though technically it’s not even a country yet, the fast-tracked calamity called Kosovo is being insinuated into all kinds of memberships normally reserved for real countries. Real countries such as Serbia, for example, which doesn’t issue threats and which — unlike Kosovo, apparently — isn’t ready for EU membership, according to craven politician Eliot Engel:

According to Sputnik, lobbyists in America are working on the draft, helped by the Clinton Foundation, and their plan is for Kosovo to gain the status of “an observer state,” modeled after Palestine.

The United States allegedly intends, as Sputnik claims, to in this way circumvent the UN Security Council [just like we did with Kosovo “independence”], whose members have veto power — and if Pristina, with the help of the United States, succeeds in achieving its goals before the end of the negotiations in Brussels, talks between Belgrade and Pristina “would exit their status-neutral format.”

At the same time, “Clinton’s America” is in a hurry to realize this idea as soon as possible also because of Turkey, i.e.,”the growing support of Istanbul to the project of ‘Greater Albania’ — because official America is not in favor of redrawing borders in the Balkans.”

[What was that PM Rama was saying about keeping outside influences out?]

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci recently said the United States should officially join the negotiations in Brussels. Also, a letter from US Congressman and Albanian lobbyist Eliot Engel has surfaced, sent to the head of EU diplomacy, Federica Mogherini, that stated Serbia was “not ready for the EU.”
…
“The whole initiative that is coming from Washington, Brussels and Berlin looks like a desire to prevent the creation of ‘Greater Albania’, because, regardless of previous interpretations, the creation of any large state in the Balkans does not suit America, or other great powers. The strengthening of Kosovo’s independence and the presence of Pristina internationally ensure that such a scenario will not happen [really?] and I think it is the interest of the United States to be involved in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina,” [political science professor Stefan] Surlic said.
…
Asked if, and to what extent, negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina would change if Pristina succeeded, with the help of America, in “grabbing the UN (chair) in any form,” Surlic said:

“First of all, this initiative should be preceded by a serious diplomatic struggle to secure the votes of two-thirds of the members of the UN, and that would…represent very strong pressure on Serbia. The mere fact that more than two-thirds of the world’s countries would recognize Kosovo as a separate state would mean defeat for Serbia and additional pressure to make concessions to Pristina,” he believes. […]

Always the same solution: Pressure Serbia. Get additional concessions from Serbia. Defeat Serbia. It’s like watching a protracted and exponential version of the Oslo “peace process.”

For several nights in a row, hundreds of people have been arriving at the bus station in Pristina, looking for ways to reach the countries of Western Europe…Many people are at the station when there are no departures, except for Belgrade — and Belgrade, they say, is the first step on their way to Western Europe.

I thought they told us Belgrade was a step backwards, the first step on the way to the Dark Ages. Meanwhile, can you imagine Jews trying to get to Germany in the years after WW2? “Genocide and ethnic cleansing” indeed.

“…The youth have no perspective [prospects], there is no hope that it will get better. We are going, but nobody knows where it will be,” says Skender Lugici.

The Kosovo economy wouldn’t be so bad if Albanians could get back-pay per Serb killed. (Sort of how they got money for every dog tail they brought in after slaughtering the province’s dogs a few years ago.)

…“I appeal to anyone who can leave Kosovo to do that because there is no perspective,” said one of the Albanians who left Pristina.
…A few hundred people gathered at the bus station welcomed the arrival of the first bus bound for Belgrade with ovations.
…Those who have already tried once to go abroad, but have been returned, are among those gathered at the bus station now. They are not giving up, and want to leave Kosovo again.

What’s the matter? Is Wesley Clark Avenue not working out for them? Life on Tony Blair Street too rough? Maybe Bill Clinton Boulevard is too pricey, but what about Madeleine Albright Street or George Bush Square? Are there no jobs on Eliot Engel Blvd? How about on Bob Dolt Avenue?

Say, if all the Albanians bolt, and since their rule is “A place belongs to those who live there,” then do the 100,000 remaining Serbs get to keep Kosovo? Or does it go to the almost-as-many American troops inhabiting the U.S. base that inhabits Kosovo? (Talk about a state within a state!)

…Most arrive to learn about the conditions for leaving Kosovo.

That is how it started two years ago when more than 50,000 people left Kosovo in a two-month wave. […]

Ah yes I remember two years ago, when “Kosovars” felt the Seven Year Itch and left their betrothed Kosovo for something more fun, and we ended up with Exodus II.

Now, 50,000 is an interesting number. That’s how many Serbs the Albanians cleansed in just four days during the March 2004 pogrom.

Indeed, it seems that after crying Ethnic Cleansing while cleansing almost all non-Albanians, Albanians are now ethnically cleansing themselves from their NATO-minted Albanian paradise. A case of Careful What You Wish For, if ever there was one.

Here was the item on it in NY Times, which in the ’80s knew who was attacking and expelling whom, but in the ’90s kept its own work buried so its president could have his war and create this cesspool. Guilty as all the hellbound politicians above.

The extended Cakaj family has built a few dozen homes here, along Tony Blair Street, between the Dubai supermarket and the French peacekeepers base, in a clannish faith that closeness would bring security. But recently the family of Kosovo Albanians has begun to splinter, as a disastrous economy, static politics and a newly created opening in the border with Serbia have enticed tens of thousands of Kosovars to leave their troubled land in search of opportunity and work.
…
Afrim Syla, 48, of Pristina, who makes pancakes for a living and recently had a son join the exodus, concurred: Once, Kosovars were laying down their lives to stay here. “Now,” he said, “we have come to a situation where we leave of our own free will.”

Sixteen years after NATO, in its only war [so far], drove out Serbian security forces so 850,000 Kosovo Albanians expelled [sic] by the Serbs could return home, the flow of Kosovo Albanians has reversed. For months now, buses have been bringing Kosovo Albanians through Serbia to the porous land border with Hungary, in the European Union.

The Albanians cross on foot, often undetected. When picked up by Hungarian officials, they have been detained only briefly. Many are enticed by the promises of a paid Serbian “guide” or have a friend or relative in Austria, Switzerland, Germany or Scandinavia and, moving freely among European Union nations, make their way toward them.

But Kosovo’s Albanians, most of whom are Muslims, are not being greeted with open arms. In another twist, they are being forced back to their land, deemed too physically — if not financially — secure to warrant asylum status.

[So many ‘unforeseeable’ “twists” in the ongoing Kosovo saga!]

…At Pristina’s grim bus station, the flow of buses leaving each night is down to two, from a reported 12. There, a large notice lists 10 reasons not to emigrate, first among them that the Kosovo state for which Albanians fought so hard needs people if it is to exist. [’ And we’ve gotten rid of everyone else!’]
…
No one seems to know exactly when and why the exodus started, but it has been startling in its swiftness and intensity. Officials in Austria and Germany sounded alarms in January, after registering huge increases in Kosovo Albanians seeking asylum. [Couldn’t happen to two nicer countries.]
…European-brokered agreements last fall…created more entry points for Kosovars to enter neighboring Serbia and freer passage across Serbia, as well as broader mutual recognition of identity documents. The buses started to roll northward.

While Kosovars felt hope in the aftermath of their brutal war with the Serbs and their declaration of independence in 2008, many — particularly the young — say they now see few prospects.

Ah but there is blame to be thrown in a non-Albanian direction yet! Wait for it…here it comes:

Many feel a stifling sense of uncertainty rooted, in part, in the territory’s status. Russia, a longtime ally of Serbia, does not recognize it, and some nations see its independence as a signal to their own separatists [imagine that!]…
…
Austria registered 1,901 asylum applications from Kosovo citizens in 2014, but saw 1,029 in January alone…By mid-February, Germany had some 18,000 applications from Kosovars since Jan. 1. Within Kosovo, the Education Ministry counts some 5,600 absent pupils. [Look in Syria or Iraq.]

But Western Europe is already swamped with refugees….some Kosovo arrivals were housed in old United States Army barracks in Heidelberg, Germany. In Germany, the flood from Kosovo has now slowed to about 200 arrivals a day, from 1,400 a day in early February.

Prime Minister Isa Mustafa, 63, now faces the challenge of keeping Kosovo Albanians at home….[H]e said he hoped to ease youth discontent by spreading the city’s sports and cultural facilities across Kosovo — a region that broils in summer, but still has no public swimming pool — and improving education. [No public pool in all of Kosovo? Just open up one of Thaci’s, Haradinaj’s or Ceku’s.]
…
For the Cakaj family, the problems have prompted some reinvention. Isa Cakaj, 42…has a degree in geological engineering, but Kosovo’s mineral mines are either drying up, or still untapped. So he is retraining in forensics…[What does Kosovo need forensics for suddenly?! That’s defeating the purpose.]
…
“If you don’t have connections and know people, there is no way for you to get a job,” said Isa Cakaj’s father, Sherif….In his 75 years, he insisted, things had never been so bad. “The worst thing is when you are alive, but you are dead,” he said. “If I was not so old, I would leave myself.”

Let’s hear that again: In his 75 years, things had never been so bad. 75 years includes quite a bit of pre post-Yugoslav times. Which means Albanians, like everyone else there, being ruled from Belgrade. Wasn’t so bad, was it? So what did our vital, violent dismantlement fix, exactly?

Meanwhile, it’s interesting that Prime Minister Mustafa, who just left office this month, had “the challenge of keeping Kosovo Albanians at home.” Because apparently he couldn’t even keep his family at home:

Kosovo’s prime minister said on Sunday his brother and some nephews and nieces were among tens of thousands of Kosovars who tried to enter the European Union last year fleeing poverty and unrest in their homeland.
…
Confirming a report by Pristina-based news portal Insajderi, Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said his own brother Ragip was among those who had tried to get into the EU.

“I read that my brother was an asylum seeker to get medical help. This is true,” Mustafa wrote on his Facebook page. “On the wave of migration, I want to be open with you, nieces and nephews also went but they are back now. This shows that my family members also face the same destiny as other citizens,” he said.
…
In the six months to March 2015, some 70,000 Kosovars — more than any other nationality — sought asylum in the European Union.
…
Ragip Mustafa first applied for asylum in France and made another application in June 2015 in Germany, Insajderi said. [Yes, the brother of the PRIME MINISTER actually made an ASYLUM gambit.]
…
Up to 800,000 Kosovars are estimated to be already living and working in western Europe, mainly in Switzerland and Germany, as part of an exodus that began in the late 1990s. [Careful they don’t all decide to live in one province.]
…
The medical sector is in a miserable condition and those who want better medical treatment have to pay [or bribe] for private care in the region or in EU countries.

And here it’s interesting that the medical sector in particular is mentioned. Maybe this March 2000 NY Times item helps explain its dismal state:

Albanians are singling out the dwindling number of educated Serbs in an effort to expel all Serbs from the province, [UN Kosovo administrator] Mr. Kouchner said…[H]e told the story of a Serbian gynecologist who chose to stay in his town, Gnjilane, after the war ended. The doctor, Josef Vasic, was one of two remaining Serbian doctors in the city, the American troops’ main Kosovo base, and was shot and killed one Sunday morning as he left his clinic. He had spent much of his professional life treating Albanian women, and was one of the moderate Serbs working with Mr. Kouchner to try to build a functioning multiethnic Kosovo. “He was my best ally,” said Mr. Kouchner, who founded the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.

The Times of London also mentioned this doctor:

Six centuries ago it was the Turks who were rampant. Now, as Nato and the United Nations look on bewildered, it is the Albanians. Ethnic cleansing continues unabated and Vasic, a gynaecologist with three young children, was its latest victim….”I heard four shots,” said his widow, Dragana. “He had already been beaten up once and had a grenade thrown at him. I didn’t think it could happen a third time.” … Apart from Nato-led Kfor peacekeepers, the only organisation fighting the losing battle to contain Kosovo’s anarchy is the UN international police force. Their two commanders in Gnjilane, an American and a Russian, have admitted that little can be done to halt such cold-blooded assassinations. If an Albanian wants to murder a Serb, UN sources say, he can do so with virtual impunity. Any attempt to find the perpetrator is lost in the conspiracy of silence…[of] a province in the grip of a powerful Albanian mafia.
…
Such was the fear of further attacks that the doctor could not be buried in Gnjilane. Under heavy Kfor protection, Dragana Vasic and the couple’s daughters…were taken to Gornje Kusce, two miles to the north. This is one of several villages that serve as havens for the Serbs. All have an Orthodox church or monastery, ringed by barbed wire…Much of the UN organisation in Kosovo appears apathetic, but [American Gary] Carrell and [Russian Valeri] Korotenko provide an uplifting example of international co-operation.

Let’s see what nuggets we can glean from some of the other reporting at the time: Oh, here was Reuters on Feb. 6, 2015:

…More than 15 years after NATO bombs wrested Kosovo from Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the young Balkan country is witnessing a dramatic surge in the number of its citizens smuggling themselves across Serbia’s border into Hungary to reach the European Union.
…
Since September, more than 30,000 have been caught in Hungary, compared with 6,000 for the whole of 2013. Almost all apply for asylum, and use the time it takes to process their applications to give overstretched immigration authorities the slip and push westwards to the likes of Germany and Switzerland through the EU’s borderless Schengen zone.
…
Aided by a relaxation of entry rules to former master Serbia, families travel by bus for 15 euros per person to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, then again by bus to the northern town of Subotica, from where they take a taxi to the border and walk across, through a water-filled ditch and then kilometers of forest.

“This is the gateway to Europe,” said Zoltan Salinger, a 23-year-old Hungarian border ranger. “I spoke to old hands on the border; they told me, in 1998, a total of 34 migrants were caught. Now we get 500-600 every day.”

Let’s hear that again. 1998 — that desperate time of running for their lives from a “monster” named Milosevic: 34 Albanians a day; 2015: 500-600 a day.

“Those two planks you see leading across that ditch,” he said to a reporter, “that’s the Schengen border.”

At the border, men removed their shoes and trousers to wade through three feet (a meter) of water in the ditch, carrying children. The walk to the nearest town is 10 km (six miles), through forest and snow that began falling on Friday afternoon.
…
Kosovo’s president went to Vushtrri the same day to urge residents to stay.

“You should not leave; you have to stay with us here and find solutions,” Atifete Jahjaga told a crowd of people.

One man yelled back, “I’ll go tonight to Hungary.” Another said: “Madam president! Find me a job and I won’t leave Kosovo.”
…
Authorities, however, are at a loss to explain the sudden jump in numbers since September. Migrants spoken to by Reuters reporters suggest smugglers have found safer routes across the border, and word of mouth has triggered an exodus.
…
Gazmend Xhema, 28, said he, his wife and three-year-old daughter had tickets for…one of at least 10 packed buses leaving every night for Belgrade…Once in Hungary, he said, “I’ll tell them: ‘Kill me, just don’t turn me back to Kosovo, because there’s nothing here.’”

From the horse’s mouth: better dead than in the Albanian paradise. Meanwhile, like the Kosovo “president” Jahjaga, the Yugoslav president also once called on Albanians to stay home, to not leave. That was in 1998-99, but they took off anyway, and it was called “ethnic cleansing.” And that president, Milosevic, was hauled before an international tribunal. So should it be now, no? Especially since in this case — unlike the posthumously exonerated Milosevic — the ruling class really was complicit in the project forcing Albanians to flee: an independent Kosovo.

Ah but wait. Some would say I’m not looking at this the right way. See, this was precisely Milosevic’s long-term plan all along — one to survive his death: Provoke a NATO intervention whose bombs would send people running, which in the immediate term would result in the desired expulsions and deaths of Albanians (See “[Milosevic Prosecutor Geoffrey] Nice Loses his Mind and Accuses Milosevic of ‘Allowing’ the NATO Bombing“). In the long term, though, Milosevic just knew that this all would leave Kosovo in the West’s hands, to be handed over to a criminal Albanian leadership that would make life in Kosovo impossible, resulting in an outflow of the Albanians in the end, emptying out the province so the Serbs could move back in.

Kosovo marked a sombre seventh anniversary of independence from Serbia Tuesday with Prime Minister Isa Mustafa urging citizens not to quit the mainly ethnic Albanian territory as it grapples with a deep economic malaise.
…
Apart from a reception by President Atifete Jahjaga for foreign diplomats and local officials, the parliamentary session was the only official event planned to celebrate the territory’s unilateral breakaway from Belgrade in 2008.

Not a single Kosovo flag was flying on the main street in Pristina. [You know things are bad if an Albanian is without a flag.]
…
In the past, Kosovo independence anniversaries have been celebrated with military parades attracting thousands of people. […]

… “We have independence, but our stomachs are empty,” said Hasan Fazliu, 27, who was making the 10-hour trip with his wife and his one-year-old son Liridon.

“It is hard to leave your country, but it is even harder to live in it,” Ilir Sejdiu, a 20-year-old construction worker said.

Once in Palic, the migrants are at the mercy of Kosovo smugglers working with local criminals, who charge an average of 300 euros ($339) per person smuggled into Hungary and demand exorbitant prices for lodging.
…
For their part, Kosovo authorities have done little to stem the flow apart from issuing warnings against using Serbia as a transit route to enter the EU illegally. Serbian authorities have also come under fire for failing to act.

…Serbian officials say they’ve recently received more than 60,000 requests for Serbian passports. Kosovo citizens still need a visa to travel in the EU, while Serbian nationals can travel freely in most of the bloc’s 28 member states.

Let’s go over this. I covered the 2010 crush for Serbian passports, but let’s state it plainly here for the record: Opportunistic though the reasons may be, Albanians are lining up to become Serbian citizens. Even as we hear the mantra: “Kosovo will never be ruled from Belgrade again!”

In an interview on the occasion of Albanian Kosovo’s 7th anniversary, London-based commentator Marko Gasic put forward the following:

…[T]he key thing here is that the population of Kosovo appears to be voting with their feet and leaving the failed Kosovo project…There is of course another school of thought that suggests that the leadership in Kosovo perhaps is helping this crisis to occur in order to give the EU a choice between billions of euro of aid going to Kosovo, or half a million refugees going to the EU. So everything is possible…We had scenarios in the past of crises in Kosovo which have been manufactured….The EU together with NATO has attempted to manage the Kosovo project and has utterly failed to do so. If Kosovo had been under Serbian control, the Serbians would be to blame for these consequences; we would be hearing all sorts of accusations…[I]n 16 years the EU and NATO have delivered nothing to Kosovo in the way of prosperity…Even the EU itself is now accused to be part of the corrupt society that they have helped to create in Kosovo…But from NATO’S point of view Kosovo still meets [a goal:] the ability of NATO to relocate from Germany into the biggest military base since Vietnam, that’s Camp Bondsteel sitting there in the heart of Kosovo which doesn’t require anybody’s permission as it continues its encirclement of strategic targets further east. So Kosovo still fulfills NATO’s demands for its function even if doesn’t fulfill any demands of the population, and any demands for what economic prosperity should involve.

Jubilant throngs gathered around gigantic letters spelling “NEWBORN,” when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia seven years ago. Today, there’s a new national symbol: The bus stop where hundreds of people gather every day to flee a country they’ve given up on.

High hopes have turned to despair as Kosovars on Tuesday mark the anniversary of their dream of nationhood coming true…The departures, coupled with violent January protests, threaten to export Kosovo’s economic and social troubles beyond its borders.

“I am so disappointed with my own place, I just want to leave,” said Bislim Shabani, an ethnic Albanian heading to Germany with his wife and four children.
…
Lured by promises of a secure future abroad, many are happy to turn their backs on a country with rampant unemployment and corrupt officials — who critics say enjoy the protection of a justice system that caters to the elite.

Mirsad Muliqi waved goodbye to his brother and his family boarding a bus to Serbia, then said: “They just want to get out of this filthy place.” The unemployed Muliqi said he would follow as soon as his brother settles down in Germany.
…
Serbia’s rejection of Kosovo’s independence has prevented further recognitions and helped to isolate it internationally.

The ease of travel to Turkey has also encouraged hundreds of Kosovo Muslims to join the ranks of Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria….

Political analyst Dukagjin Gorani blames the simmering troubles on former rebel leaders… “Kosovo has … been systematically robbed and enslaved in the name of liberation,” Gorani said, referring to officials from the Kosovo Liberation Army who fought the separatist war and are now in leading positions…[N]o sentences have been handed down — triggering claims that the accused have strong-armed the fledgling legal system. Gorani said the situation could explode into unrest at any time.

“You know how it is with the Balkans,” he said. “It is always a powder keg and at the heart of which Kosovo remains with a very short fuse.”

…RT:Kosovo’s biggest daily newspaper has published a full-page appeal from Austria not to waste time and money trying to get asylum in the EU. What do you make of that?

Aleksandr Pavic: That is just a continuation of the real Western hypocrisy….They encouraged independence of a territory which absolutely cannot sustain itself. They encouraged civil war within the country. They did all that and gave those people false hopes, and now they are turning them back. It’s really cynical. And now what? They [Kosovans] lived much better in one country when they were part of Serbia. [Now] their living standards are about 10 times worse. But now Serbia is supposed to take care of them, but Austria and Western countries were encouraging them to secede from Serbia.

RT: Austria and some other Western countries gave a green light to Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. So why does the West refuse now to take responsibility for their actions?

AP: Austria is afraid of people who have become absolutely desperate; people who since their so-called independence was declared in 2008 have lost all hope, because Austria as well as other Western countries gave power in Kosovo to the mafia, to terrorists. Ordinary people who just want to live a normal life have absolutely no chance to earn a living whatsoever. There is no industry in Kosovo: whatever worked has been destroyed either in the war or afterwards during the so-called privatization transition…And as a result you have desperate people who are just trying to make a living, and Austria doesn’t want to provide for them. It shouldn’t have been offering them false hopes to begin with.

RT: We see the similar situation happening in Ukraine right now. Shouldn’t there be any lessons learned after conflict in Kosovo?

AP: The lesson that should be learned here is that…when you start meddling in other countries’ problems you cause problems for that country and for your own country as well…Kosovo is just one example of a territory that has been instrumentalized for the purposes of others. We have a similar example now in Ukraine….I don’t think that Ukrainians…would choose today’s Ukraine over Ukraine before other countries meddled in their own affairs and cause a civil war…So, the key lesson is: mind your own business…[and] respect international law…

RT: What do you think is the best way to resolve the long-running complex situation in Kosovo?

AP: The best way to resolve the situation is to give up on the project of so-called independent Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians and Serbs lived in the same country for decades, they lived peacefully, and it was a prosperous country compared to what it is now. If they stopped with the project of independent Kosovo and just told the Albanians that if they want to live peacefully they should make arrangements with their neighbors, with Serbia and just not interfere. And I’m sure that Serbs and Albanians would much more quickly come to an understanding — as would Ukrainians and Russians — without outside meddling. So just give up on your own projects that serve your own interests and let other people settle their difference between themselves.

Based on these eminently predictable developments, in June of 2015 Canadian military reporter Scott Taylor offered some advice to Ukraine: “The people of Ukraine who see their salvation in the form of a NATO intervention should take a good look at NATO’s ’success’ in Kosovo.”

The exodus appears to have been abetted by an EU-encouraged easing of travel rules in Serbia, which since 2012 has allowed Kosovars to enter with Kosovo-issued documents that Belgrade previously rejected given that it does not recognize its former southern province as independent.

Again, this was part of the arm-twisted “progress” in relations between Serbia and Kosovo, a series of Western-overseen agreements that climaxed in April 2013, making eventual Serbian recognition of Kosovo inevitable. Let the West continue enjoying the fruits of its coercive brokerings. But back to the blame game:

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and is recognized by more than 100 countries. But Serbia’s refusal — backed by U.N. veto-holder Russia — to do so has impeded Kosovo’s international integration and therefore its economic development….Kosovo Interior Minister Skender Hyseni…appealed to [EU ambassadors] to speed up procedures for processing asylum requests to discourage would-be migrants. He pinned the blame on the smugglers, saying: “There are criminals who are profiting on the misfortune of Kosovo’s citizens.”

The smugglers, of course, merely respond to new circumstances. And those are created at the top. More blame, and the solution to Albanians leaving: make it easier for them to leave (or, er, “travel”):

[M]inister for European integration [Bekim Collaku] sees their anger as the fault of the EU. “This generation is extremely frustrated,” he said. “Kosovo has a huge diaspora, yet just to get an appointment for a visa takes six months. People feel trapped.”

Kosovo is the only country in the region not to have a visa waiver scheme within the Schengen area – even Moldovans can travel without a visa, which rankles in Pristina. But surely the exodus is due to his government’s economic and political policies, rather than the visa situation?

“It has been a worrying situation, but now the numbers leaving are falling,” he said.

…50,000 people left this tiny Balkan country of 1.8 million since late last year, according to the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, though unofficial estimates are twice as high….In March, the United Nations ranked Kosovo as the fourth-biggest source of asylum-seekers in the world after Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, with Kosovo the only country on the list not facing mass violence and civil war.

Even as all these Exodus headlines have been coming out, the pressure on Serbia to recognize the disaster of a state only intensifies, while permanent Congressman Eliot Engel drafts a resolution to give it “observer” status at the UN like its almost-as-fictitious counterpart Palestine. Just this month Washington Times got duped into publishing longtime Albanian shill David L. Phillips’ “Why Serbia must recognize Kosovo’s Independence,” and Kosovo’s fanatical leadership continues its PR, from its own little world:

Kosovo became a state only 7 years ago and is now recognised by the majority of UN members. We became members of international bodies such as IMF and World Bank as well as International Olympics Committee. Independence of Kosovo helped Balkans become a stable and peaceful region. I think that after a long and dark century under Serbian occupation and communist rule, as well as genocidal war in 1999, Kosovo today can stand tall and proud of its position in the new regional geopolitical architecture….Recognition of Kosovo is a one-way street. One day in not so distant future even Serbia will recognise Kosovo and our flag will wave in Belgrade because EU will demand full and good neighbourly relations between candidate countries aspiring EU membership.

(Later in 2015 Thaci called the EU-forced relations-normalizing dialogue what it was, saying Serbia has already “de facto recognised Kosovo is an independent state”. “Every day Belgrade has been taking steps which bring it closer to the official recognition of Kosovo.”)

Nor did the bad news from Kosovo chasten it out of again asking — the same month as all the Exodus news — for the coveted recognition it’s always sought: Kosovo seeks recognition from Israel (World Jewish Congress, Feb. 26, 2015)

In a speech before the Israel Council on Foreign Relations (ICFR), which operates under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress, Enver Hoxhaj, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations…said that the rise of the State of Israel was seen as a model for Kosovo in its struggle for independence and expressed admiration for the achievements of the Jewish state in many fields of endeavor. He stressed that as a student at the University of Vienna, he had become well acquainted with the writings of Theodor Herzl and these had served as an inspiration to him and some of his compatriots. […]

Theodor Herzl. Yasser Arafat. George Washington. Kosovo was inspired by them all — it just depends on who the audience is. Indeed, Kosovo is the geographic Bill Clinton.

Perhaps the funniest part of it all is that when reading about the Exodus you’ll often find a sponsored link on the page listing “Flights to Kosovo.” The travel industry hasn’t gotten the memo that all the flight is FROM Kosovo.

(Oh, he’s waving good-bye.)

1999:

2015:

Kosovans from the city of Pristina walk on a street in [Albanicidal] Belgrade…Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

1999:

2015:

Serbian border police stop Kosovars trying to cross the border to Hungary, as they walk in a field near the town of Subotica, (REUTERS/Marko Djurica)

1999:

2015:

Kosovar children cry after they crossed illegally the Hungarian-Serbian border with their family (REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh)

1999:

2015:

A Kosovo man carries his baby as he illegally crosses the Hungarian-Serbian border near the village of Asotthalom (Reuters)

Am I the only one who finds these images hilarious? They’re visual documentation that ethnic supremacy can backfire. And that fake tears can lead to real ones.

In five months we’ll see how Kosovo’s 10th “anniversary” goes. Hold on to your hijabs.

From the late Stella Jatras’s letter to legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, Oct. 20, 1996:

I personally heard you say that Serbs had committed that terrible atrocity and even after it was discovered that Islamic terrorists had bombed The World Trade Center, you didn’t have the decency nor the character to apologize to Americans of Serbian descent. With your inexcusable lie, you helped to unjustly further the demonization of the Serbian people, a people…who fought as allies in two world wars against Hitler’s fascist Croatians and Muslims, where over a million Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were exterminated so brutally in Croatia’s death camps….

For a true analysis of the Bosnia conflict, I suggest you read Yossef Bodansky’s book, “Offensive in the Balkans: The Potential for a Wider War as a Result of Foreign Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” and his latest book, “Some Call It Peace.”
…
We have just witnessed one of the biggest con games in recent history and as a result, the deliberate destruction of a sovereign nation and the needless deaths of thousands of innocent people, on all sides, although to read our media, we are led to believe that only the Croats and Muslims have suffered. Because of the lies that have been fed to the American people, we have a President, drunk with power, that was able to send our troops, with incredibly little resistance from our politicians and the American people, to a place where he wouldn’t have gone himself as a young man. Our venture into Bosnia also advances a One-World Concept, a concept that is, unfortunately, the agenda of both parties.

Our politicians and media are playing a dangerous game. A game that may eventually take us into a Third World War, which is not out of the realm of possibility, according to many European analysts and scholars. It is a game we may very well live to regret.

DETROIT (ChurchMiltant.com) – A prominent Islamic expert is comparing the bishops’ silence on terrorism to sex abuse cover-up. Robert Spencer, an Islamic terror expert and author of 16 books on Islam, released an editorial Sunday excoriating the U.S. bishops’ actions to punish clergy and schoolteachers who speak out against Islam, including Spencer himself.

“The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops moves actively and swiftly to silence and demonize voices that tell the truth about the Muslim persecution of Christians,” Spencer noted, naming various bishops who’ve refused him, as well as other Muslim critics, a platform in their dioceses.

“You can reject every element of the Nicene Creed and everything the Church teaches, and still the U.S. Catholic Bishops will consider you a Catholic in good standing,” he continued. “But if you believe that Islam is not a religion of peace, you have no place in the U.S. Catholic Church.”

So, it seems that whatever the current Fascism, the upper echelons of the Catholic Church protect it. In WWII, it was Hitler’s fascism and exterminations; today it’s Islam’s. The only difference is that the Pope hasn’t yet signed an actual piece of paper like the 1933 Concordat that officially directed all men of the cloth to do as told by the emerging new masters of the universe.

…CM: Knowing the historical conflicts between Islam and Christianity, why would the bishops be so quick and severe toward those who are informing the laity? Why would they want the laity ignorant?

RS: This mystifies me, but my best assessment is that this is an outgrowth of the spirit of Vatican II, which called upon Muslims and Christians to set aside ancient antagonisms and find common ground. There is a general assumption among the bishops that just as Christianity has changed since the time of the Crusades, so also has Islam, and dialog will iron out any remaining differences.

In reality, this is an unfounded assumption, as Islamic teaching has not changed, and still contains an imperative to wage war against Christians and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law. I would expect that most bishops, however, would dismiss the idea that Islamic teaching contains such an imperative as an “Orientalist” and “Islamophobic” false claim. They, however, are the ones who are ignorant.

CM: What do you think the bishops’ problem is with your talks and position on Islam?

RS: I’m told that Bp. Nicholas Samra believes that I am “spreading hate,” and since I was a member of his diocese, he himself told me that many bishops had approached him at the USCCB conference telling him that he had to “do something” about me. They apparently believe that I am harming the dialog they are conducting with Muslims, and they apparently also think that this dialog is producing results, even though Muslim persecution of Christians has increased exponentially since it began.

For my part, I reject the charge that I am spreading hate, and challenge Samra or any other bishop to quote a single hateful statement from my work. I am exposing facts that many would prefer to keep concealed; the “hate” charge is simply an attempt to make people of good will turn against my work.

CM: If the bishops do start to speak out against Islam, will it make Christian persecution worse or start an all-out war?

RS: In Islamic law, Christians must live in subservience and submission to Islamic law. If they speak out about their plight, it will get even worse for them, and their lives could be forfeit. Thus they generally adopt an attitude of publicly praising and siding with those who persecute them, so that it won’t get even worse for them. This is the attitude that the bishops now appear to have adopted as well: Samra himself told me that I shouldn’t speak out against Muslim persecution of Christians, as doing so would only make matters worse for Middle-Eastern Christians.

Where have we heard THAT before? Again, see WWII. A cop-out then, a cop-out now.

Meanwhile, imagine if antibiotics worked on this principle: Don’t hit the microbe in its early stages of development; let it fester, spread, get stronger, and multiply before you even consider moving against it, so that it’ll definitely be too late.

While I am aware of that possibility, at the same time to dissimulate about the nature and magnitude of that persecution only misleads Christians outside the Middle East into complacency. It also just validates and reinforces violent intimidation. It is incumbent upon the bishops as messengers of the truth to tell the whole truth about what is happening to the Christians of the Middle East, and to reject a submission to Islamic intimidation that would condemn our children and our children’s children to slavery. To accept that intimidation and lie or remain silent because of it is only to encourage more such intimidation. They could speak out while working to ensure that the United States and other powers do everything they can to protect the remaining Christians in the Middle East from further persecution.

CM: What can the faithful do to influence the bishops or fight back against the liberal media?

RS: Call them to tell the truth. When they issue statements about Islam that are dishonest and misleading, challenge them. I have been severely criticized for criticizing bishops. Many Catholics seem to think that to do so is disloyal to the Church. On the contrary, I believe that not to call out bishops when they are sinful and wrong is even more disloyal to the Church. It is the kind of thinking that led to the pedophilia scandals.

Like most everyone else on the planet, the bishops don’t speak out even while it’s still relatively safe to do so (though in 2017 it’s less safe than it was last year, and last year was less safe than the year before, and so on). And yet every last person answers the famous allegorical question with “Yes of course if I lived in Hitler’s time and knew his plans I would kill him.”

Ha!

We’re also supposed to believe the Catholic Church did all it could for the unfortunates of WWII even as it stayed on friendly terms with the darkness. Then too the lower priests who actually stood up got either no support, or reprimands, from the Church, with some even finding themselves in concentration camps.

This is the classic dhimmi mentality, the mindset of those who have been subjugated for so long under Muslim hegemony that they can’t imagine viewing the world in any other way. For centuries, Christians in Muslim lands were inculcated with the idea that if they criticized Islam in any way, even the slightest negative word, they would be killed. They got used to praising their masters and overlords, however contrary to fact the praise may have been, simply as a matter of survival. Then the Arab nationalist movement, which was begun in large part by Christian Arabs as an attempt to place themselves on equal footing with the Muslims on a secular and ethnic basis, thereby mitigating the institutionalized discrimination of the Sharia, resulted only in the Christian Arab communities completely adopting Muslim political perspectives, and identifying themselves with the jihad agenda.

Meanwhile, the Ottoman policy of keeping the dhimmi communities mutually antagonistic, so as to guard against the possibility of their uniting in revolt against their masters, followed by the Arab nationalist unity of the Christians with the Muslims as Arabs opposed to Zionism, both reinforced Christian antisemitism.

These attitudes have perdured through generations. This is the result. If these Christian leaders in Jerusalem could free themselves from their mind-forged manacles and look at the situation objectively, they would realize that the Islamic agenda requires their subjugation no less than it requires that of the Jews, and they would unite with the Israelis in an alliance for their mutual freedom. Instead, this.
…
“Catholic Churches in Jerusalem Blame Israel for Muslim Violence, Deny Biblical Roots of Temple Mount,” by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News, July 23, 2017 (thanks to Cheryl):

Amid the intensifying battles surrounding the Temple Mount, the Catholic Church expressed its concerns in terms that placed the blame entirely on Israel while referring to the site exclusively by its Muslim name. One bishop stated in an interview on Vatican Radio that there has, in fact, been no Palestinian violence.

On Sunday, Pope Francis addressed the crowd gathered in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, telling them that he viewed “with trepidation the grave tensions and violence” surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

“I feel the need to express a distressed appeal for moderation and dialogue,” the Pope said, calling on the people to pray for the sake of Jerusalem.

The violence the Pope is referring to began ten days ago when three Palestinian terrorists murdered two Druze Israeli policemen while they guarded the entrance to the Temple Mount. The Israeli police entered the site and, after a gunbattle, killed the three terrorists.

The Israeli government closed the site to all visitors until Sunday, when it reopened to Muslims with increased security measures that included walk-through metal detectors. The Islamic Waqf, the Muslim trust which controls the Temple Mount, called for a boycott of the site. Muslim crowds rioted last week and three Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli police.

On Friday night, a Palestinian, citing the situation at the Temple Mount as his motivation, entered the town of Halamish. There, he murdered a 70-year-old grandfather and his middle-aged son and daughter while they sat at their Sabbath table. He also seriously wounded the 68-year-old grandmother.

In the wake of the growing violence, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem released a statement. Signed by the heads of all 13 Christian communities in Jerusalem, it condemned the recent escalation of violence at the Temple Mount, but did so in language that clearly favored the Palestinians and condemned Israel. The statement referred to the site by its Arabic names, disregarding any Jewish or Christian connection to the site. […]